Medicare Fraud

LETTERS FROM READERS

February 3, 2000

YOU HEAR a lot of lip service from our government about how Medicare fraud is running rampant. It amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. A lot of money is spent trying to catch those who file false claims. What happens to those people when they're caught? I really don't know, but one way to get this under control would be to take Medicare away from those caught filing false claims. If it's a doctor or a hospital, forbid them from filing again.

This is the big question: Why did the government pass a law last year forbidding Medicare Part A to tell us, the ones who have to pay the balance of the bill, how much the facility was paid? Imagine what doors this opens for fraud. The facility can tell us we owe anything the facility wants, and we have no way to find out what Medicare paid because it's against the law to divulge that information.

Where are the checks and balances? This is outrageous. This law has to be repealed.